Talk:Aché

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It's impossible to support Stroessner in just about anything, but the language - the diction, the connotations - in this article is simply not encyclopedic. Sources quoted are clearly far on the left. Zafiroblue05 06:08, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I've revised the article and amplified sources. Care to make specific additional suggestions? --Carwil 18:07, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Contents 1 NPOV cleanup 2 Axxn 12:05, 23 January 2007 (UTC) 3 10 May 2007 4 POV paragraph needs someone who's POV it is

[edit] NPOV cleanup

This article is part of the NPOV backlog. Since the disputed text seems to have been edited, and there has been no discussion suggesting further disagreement, the tag is removed. If you disagree with this, please re-tag the article with {{NPOV}} and post to Talk. -- Steve Hart 20:22, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

This article is mainly left wing propaganda written by Phillippe Edeb, a French ex-anthropology graduate student who failed to obtain his Ph.D. degree after many years of study in the 1980s and 90s. "Piragi" is his Ache "nickname" and not part of his legal identity. He was evicted from several Ache communities in the 1980s and 90s and later formed the puppet organization "LINAJE" in order for he and some foreign compatriots living in the capital city to "represent" the Ache (through the use of a couple "puppet Ache representatives") to the outside world (and become the middlemen in all funded Ache development projects which they claim must be approved and directed by them). LINAJE has been rejected by the Ache who instead formed their own pan tribal organization "ACA" (Associacion de Comundades Ache) with an elected leadership that represents the tribe. The community of 4 Ache families that was founded by LINAJE (Kuetuvykue) is not legally recognized nor do they have any land of their own, but instead they are squatters on a small corner of a Ava Guarani community. The Ache population currently contains about 1500 individuals distributed in 6 communities, none of which are affiliated with LINAJE.

There is virtually nothing in this article about the Ache or their culture and the author avoids mentioning most of the important anthropological writtings on the Ache. I suggest the reader consult the 100+ published journal articles and 2 books by Kim Hill, Magdlena Hurtado, Kristen Hawkes and HIllard Kaplan (all full professors at US universities) and their students. Hill has worked with the Ache for 30 years, speaks the language fluently and knows all individuals in the population personally. He has also spent more than 1000 days in the forest trekking with nomadic Ache bands living entirely from hunting and gathering.

The article by LINAJE is full of erroneous assertions begining with the incorrect interpretation of the Guarani term for the Ache tribe ("Guajagi", in earliest Jesuit documents, is derived from a common Guarani term used to refer to enemy tribes). The alleged history of Ache genocide presented here is based on Mark Munzel's reports which were full of distortions, exaggerations, and in some cases intentional fabrication (Munzel once published photos of Ache children swimming in a creek with a caption indicating that they were bodies floating downstream from a massacre). Details of the Ache history are presented in Hill and Hurtado's mongraph, "Ache Life History". The truth is that the Paraguayan rural population without help nor interference from the Paraguayan government killed and enslaved Ache indians from the time of conquest until the early 1970s. Ache indians also killed peasants and loggers whenever possible. This was part of a war of conquest which is exemplary of the sad history of the Americas and not unique to Paraguay. The same types of events took place in a half dozen Latin American countries during the 20th century and have continued much more recently in some countries (such as Brazil). Although the deculturation of the Ache was a goal of both government officials and missionaries in the early contact period, much of the change experienced since the 1970s was instigated by the Ache themselves, who have little interest in returning to the old ways of their ancestors. Likewise, many negative features of the Ache contact history were due to Ache cultural traits (such as abandoning orphaned children, or killing them)which have since been modified.

The current situation of the Ache can only be understood in the context of their traditional hunting and gathering lifestyle which is not described in this article. The Ache in some communties continue to hunt and gather regularly while those in others (such as the LINAJE puppet community) never enter the forest. The Ache work with a variety of individuals and organizations to gain legal land title, conserve natural resources, and develop a sustainable economy. Despite considerable outside help the Ache continue to experience extreme poverty, and problems with education and health. They have obtained some employement acting as forest guides and park guards, and did indeed participate in research to census forest animals and plants as a way of managing these resources in areas where they have legal extraction rights (two articles about this were published in the journal "Conservation Biology"). The suggestion that this constitutes "biopiracy" is a pathetic attempt by left wing organizations to discredit successful conservation NGOs who refuse their agenda (mainly the critics simply want a piece of the action -- $$ flowing through their organizations rather than other NGOs that dont share their agenda. The conservation research that the Ache participated in, and which provided good employment to several Ache families, was encouraged and supported by the Ache communities themselves. When that research terminated in 2003 the Ache immediately requested that new sources of funding be sought out in order to continue biological research of their forest environment.

69.254.150.25 18:27, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I wrote much of this article, based on 1970's & indigenous movement sources which predate Phillippe Edeb's writing, with the exception of the bit on LINAJE. I appreciate others who are more knowledgeable to fill in the rest.--Carwil 15:59, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Axxn 12:05, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

It is not Strossner, but NTM which destroyed the Ache.

[edit] 10 May 2007

From Jonathan Padwe (jonathan.padweATyale.edu):

As someone who lived in the Ache community of Arroyo Bandera for over 3 years (1994-1997), it is clear to me that this page contains a heavy bias towards the views of anthropologist Philippe Edeb, who has been quite critical of the work of Hill, Hurtado, the FMB, and most others who have sought to work with the Aché. There are legitimate concerns about many of the interventions into Aché society by outsiders, but this article fails to do justice to the complex cultural and historical forces that have influenced the role of outsiders in the lives of the Aché. As an increasingly fluent Aché speaker during the years I lived there, and probably one of only three to five truly fluent non-Ache speakers of the language at that time, I was not impressed by the ability of any outsider to understand their situation with the exception of the missionaries at Ypetevy, Hill and Hurtado, and, at times, the Catholic missionaries working with them. All of these outsiders were aligned with factions within the communities, and perhaps the most isolated and least generally respected of these outsiders were those aligned with the views described in this article, and especially of Edeb, who, in my opinion, was barely tolerated by the people he claimed to work with.

Furthermore, the discussion of genocide cites non-experts with no in-depth knowledge of the crisis. Indeed, in depth study of the political campaign arranged around the issue by Richard ARens, Mark Munzel and others demonstrates inconsistency, contradiction, and fabrication. This does not absolve the Paraguayan government or the international community of their role in facilitating the destruction of the Aché. However, the Aché genocide can only be understood within the context of the larger issue of the extermination of indigenous people throughout the Americas. And certainly the story of this difficult chapter in the history of the Aché should not be told without including the voices of the Aché themselves.

72.224.141.37 15:35, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

See my comment above. Welcome to the editing. I still haven't read Edeb on most of the issues involved.--Carwil 16:01, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] POV paragraph needs someone who's POV it is

Who's advancing this argument. Let's name them, "others" is nebulous.

Others, however, claim that the Global Forest Coalition allegations are poorly documented and have little bearing on reality. With the almost complete destruction of Paraguay's forest outside the reserve area, the notion that Aché nomadism could be continued is unrealistic at best. Claims of biopiracy overlook the fact that the employment of Aché in identifying forest resources was at the center of an attempt to involve the Aché in the management of the natural resources they continue to rely on, and which they continue to hold rights to, within the reserve. Finally, the idea that the creation of the nature reserve drove the Aché into the hands of missionaries is ludicrous, at best; by providing the Aché with non-missionary derived outlets for livelihood, it seems likely that the creation of the reserve lessened the missionaries' power over the Aché.

--Carwil 18:40, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, I haven't figured out yet how to register under my name but I am working on that. I am Kim Hill, professor of Anthropology at Arizona State University. I have worked with the Ache for 31 years and speak the language fluently. I have published more than 135 scholarly articles and a book about the Ache. I'm sure Carwil is well intentioned but he is not qualified to write an entry on the Ache. This illustrates the weakness of an open access encyclopedia. Much of the information in this article is erroneous, some is blatant propaganda. I am working with a student to correct this and provide useful and accurate information about the Ache available to the public. I will have to reorganize the Wiki outline so I hope this is not too complicated. Jon Padwe's comments above are very useful, but any student looking for serious background information on the Ache should avoid Wikipedia because there is no control over content and no serious verification. This is exactly why most teachers and Univ. Profs ban Wiki as a source of information in student researched papers. Instead I suggest looking for scholarly articles about the Ache on Google, or checking out the books "Ache Life History" and "Anthropologist, Scientist of the People". My professional CV at the ASU departmental site lists all 135 articles that I have published about Ache culture, history, biology and ecology. The Ache life history book contains true and verifiable data concerning the so-called "Ache genocide" as well as detailed analyses of all other causes of mortality during the 20th century.

By the way, I dont know who did the edit labeled "others" but their views are essentially correct (the tone is unfortunate, but then so is the original irrational critique of Ache-instigated conservation research). The Ache have worked in conservation research to help manage their own use of resources in the Mbaracayu region for the past 15 years. There are several scholarly articles on this research (see the journal "Conservation Biology"). This research has not only helped in indigenous resource management, but has also generated a good deal of income for tribal members who are paid by funded projects as para biologists and patrol guards who keep outsiders and loggers off Ache reservations. The Global Forest Coalition has never visited the Mbaracayu Ache to my knowledge and appear to have relied on Edeb for their viewpoint. Edeb is a "persona non-grata" in all six of the legitimate Ache communities, and thus has little direct knowledge of anything happening amongst the Ache. He is intensely biased against any and all projects that are not designed and administered by him, and has no ability or qualifications to represent Ache views. He has created a puppet NGO, "Linaje" which is rejected by all six Ache communities, and seems mainly dedicated to producing self-serving propaganda (such as much of this Wiki article). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.162.254.206 (talk) 05:34, 29 January 2008 (UTC)